The Downtown Dinner
May 18, 2022
6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Cipriani
25 Broadway
New York, NY 10004

Honoring:

Liberty Award for Artistic Leadership
Pam Tanowitz

LMCC Alumni Awards

2022 Sam Miller Award for Performing Arts
Harlem Chamber Players

2022 Michael Richards Award for Visual Arts
Ezra Wube

2022 Sarah Verdone Writing Award
Chia-Lun Chang

Special Guest Performance
Bill Frisell

Special Guest Emcee
Morgan Bassichis

Since 2002, The Downtown Dinner has played an essential role in raising funds to support our mission, and has become a highlight of the spring season in Lower Manhattan. Every year, The Downtown Dinner gathers over 500 of the City’s most important business, civic and cultural leaders to celebrate the role that artists play in building a vibrant and resilient Downtown.

Please contact our Benefit Manager, Kerri Gawryn at kerri@lmcc.net or Development Assistant, Ian Wright at iwright@lmcc.net with any questions.

Our Honorees:

Pam Tanowitz, the New York-based choreographer and collaborator has steadily delineated her own dance language through decades of research and creation. Her combination of intentional unpredictability, whimsical complexity and natural drama evoke master dance makers from Cunningham to Balanchine through the clever weaving of movement, music and space. In 2000, she founded Pam Tanowitz Dance to explore dance-making with a consistent community of dancers. She has since been commissioned by leading arts institutions, and has received numerous honors and fellowships. ”Her dances have been called a “rare achievement” (New York Times) and her 2018 work, Four Quartets, inspired by T.S. Eliot’s literary masterpiece, was called “the greatest creation of dance theater so far this century” (New York Times). Tanowitz is a visiting guest artist at Rutgers University and is the first-ever choreographer in residence at the Fisher Center at Bard.

Ezra Wube (b. Ethiopia) is a mixed media artist based in Brooklyn, NY. His work references the notion of past and present, the constant changing of place, and the dialogical tensions between "here" and "there". His exhibitions include the 21st Contemporary Art Biennial Sesc_Videobrasil, Brazil; The 2nd edition of the Biennale d’Architecture d’Orléans, France; “Gwangju Biennale”, Gwangju, South Korea; Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, Art in General, kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga, Latvia; The Studio Museum in Harlem, NY; “Dak’Art Biennale”, Dakar, Senegal and Time Square Arts Midnight Moment, NY. His residencies, commissions, and awards include Smack Mellon Studio Program, Brooklyn, NY; Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY; WorkSpace, LMCC Residency Program, New York, NY; Open Sessions Program, The Drawing Center, New York, NY; Little Sun, Berlin, Germany; The Africa Center, NY; The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, NY; Museum of the Moving Images, Queens, NY; The Wolfsonian–Florida International University, Miami Beach, Fl; the Triangle Arts Association Residency, Brooklyn, NY and The Substation Artist Residency Program, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa; and Rema Hort Mann Foundation.

The Harlem Chamber Players is an ethnically diverse collective of professional musicians dedicated to bringing high caliber, affordable, accessible live music to people in the Harlem community and beyond. Founded in 2008, The Harlem Chamber Players annually presents a rich season of formal live concerts, indoors, outdoors, and online. They also promote arts inclusion and equal access to the arts, bringing live music to underserved communities and promoting shared community arts and cultural engagement. The group was first inspired by the late Janet Wolfe, a long-time patron of minority musicians and founder of the NYC Housing Authority Symphony Orchestra. The Harlem Chamber Players have presented culturally relevant programs at numerous venues throughout the city and collaborated with many other arts organizations. The Harlem Chamber Players are also Artists-in-residence at the Harlem School for the Arts. They have been featured on national radio at WQXR/WNYC at The Greene Space. The Harlem Chamber Players have also been mentioned in articles in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Musical America, and on NPR, NBC, and Here and Now on ABC.

Chia-Lun Chang is the author of Prescribee (forthcoming, 2022), winner of the Nightboat Poetry Prize, and a chapbook, One Day We Become Whites (No, Dear, 2016). She has been awarded fellowships from Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Vermont Studio Center, Tofte Lake Center, Poets House, among others. Her writing has appeared in Poetry Society of America, PEN America, Literary Hub, Hyperallergic, Brooklyn Poets, Apogee Journal, and widely elsewhere. She has performed at MoMA PS1, Poetry Foundation, Queens Museum, and more. Chia-Lun teaches contemporary Taiwanese poetry and fiction at the Brooklyn Public Library and works as a content strategist. Born and raised in New Taipei City, Taiwan, she lives in New York City.

Special Guest Performance

The Downtown Dinner 2022 will feature iconic and legendary Jazz Guitarist, Bill Frisell. 

Bill Frisell’s career as a guitarist and composer has spanned more than 40 years and many celebrated recordings, whose catalog has been cited by Downbeat as “the best recorded output of the decade”. Recognized as one of America’s 21 most vital and productive performing artists, Frisell was named an inaugural Doris Duke Artist in 2012.  He is also a recipient of grants from United States Artists, Meet the Composer among others.  In 2016, he was a beneficiary of the first FreshGrass Composition commission to preserve and support innovative grassroots music.  Upon San Francisco Jazz opening their doors in 2013, he served as one of their Resident Artistic Directors.  Bill is also the subject of a documentary film by director Emma Franz, entitled Bill Frisell: A Portrait, which examines his creative process in depth.  He has received an honorary doctorate from the Berklee College of Music. Special Guest Emcee Morgan Bassichis is a comedic performer who has been called “fiercely hilarious” by The New Yorker and “a tall child or, well, a big bird” by The Nation. Morgan was an LMCC process space resident in 2015. Their recent shows include Questions to Ask Beforehand (Bridget Donahue, 2022) and Don't Rain On My Bat Mitzvah (Creative Time, 2021), co-created with Ira Khonen Temple. Morgan's performances have been presented by Abrons Arts Center, Danspace Project, the Kitchen, and the Whitney Museum. Their book of to-do lists, The Odd Years, was published by Wendy's Subway in 2020. Morgan has released two albums: March is for Marches with Ethan Philbrick (Triple Canopy, 2019) and More Protest Songs! Live From St. Mark’s Church (2018). 

Our Supporters
As of May 2, 2022

Titanium Committee 

Anonymous
BNY Mellon

CBRE

Cisco

Citi

HLW International Architects

The Howard Hughes Corporation

WB Wood/Mines Family

World Wide Technology, Inc.

Platinum Committee 

Adamson Associates Architects

Bloomberg Philanthropies

Brookfield Properties

Bruce Ehrmann and Sandi Slone

Buro Happold

Dell Technologies
Elizabeth and Michael Ashworth

Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP
HPE / AMD

Ken & Kim Blacklow
KPF 

Lendlease

Linda Genereux and Timur Galen

Newmark

Savanna 

Time Equities, Inc.

Trinity Church Wall Street

Silver Supporter
Charles Maikish, Chairman Emeritus, LMCC and retired Director, WTC
Cole Shotz P.C.

The Durst Organization

L&L Holding Company, LLC

May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, Inc

Meredith Kane

Richard and Ronay Menschel

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill

Bronze Supporter
Richard Berney, Cozen O’ Connor 

Marcia and Noel Caban

SL Green Realty
Scott B. Salmirs, President & CEO, ABM

Copper Supporter
AKRF, Inc.
Cherrie Nanninga
DeSimone Consulting Engineers
Downtown-Lower Manhattan Association
Kramer Levins Naftalis & Frankel LLP

Flushing Bank

Jay and Jordana Berman

McDermott Will & Emery LLP
Michele de Milly, Geto & de Milly, Inc.

Mimi Raygorodetsky and Paul McMahon

Paula Cooper Gallery

Thornton Tomasetti

WSP - Building Systems

Additional Donors

Cosentini Associates
Esta Stecher

Jacob and Angela Buchdahl
Jill & Peter Kraus

Michele and Steve Klausner
Rachel E. Miller

Robert de Rothschild